In a Canadian Canoe; The Nine Muses Minus One, and Other Stories

THIS morning, because the air was fresh, and the sun was bright, and I had eaten too much breakfast, it seemed to be an excellent thing to cut all lectures and to loaf in the Backs. Few boats are there in the morning, and I have found, when my canoe takes me out, that the fewer the boats the less the unpleasantness. I can run into a bridge, but a bridge cannot run into me; and a bridge always takes my apologies in a nice spirit. The afternoon loafers on the river are not yet sufficiently educated to understand that a Canadian canoe must go its own way, and that any attempt to control it is a baseness.

The other afternoon my canoe got a little humorous. It saw a man on in front of us working hard in one of those vessels that went a thousand miles down the Jordan—or something to that effect. I knew what my canoe would do. It broke into a canter, caught the absolute stranger in the back of the neck, and knocked him into the water. You would have expected the absolute stranger to have come up, breathing the Englishman’s Shortest Prayer. He did not. He apologised for having been in my way, said that it was entirely his own fault, and hoped that he had not inconvenienced me. I shrugged my shoulders and forgave him, with considerable hauteur.

But my boat got Remorse badly. It did not want to live any more, and tried to knock its brains out against Clare Bridge. I soothed it, and tied it up. Canadian canoes are such sensitive things.

This sort of incident cannot happen when one cuts lectures to go on the river in the morning. And one does more work. You take your Plato’s “Phædo,” and you really enjoy it. If there’s any word you don’t know, you leave it; if there’s any sentence you can’t understand, you don’t worry about it; and if there’s any word you can understand, it goes home to you more. That’s the right spirit. That’s the way the ancient Greeks took their language. What did they know about dictionaries and grammars and cribs? And then, after a couple of minutes, one pitches the “Phædo” into the bows of the boat, and a great Peace falls on one’s soul.

My Better Self does not agree with me on these points; but I had words with my Better Self this morning, and since then we have not been on speaking terms. I find it impossible to convince my Better Self of great truths; I could deceive my Better Self, which is a common practice, but I will not do it. I have seen men do it; and I have been very, very sorry for them. I have known a man, who had previously been honest, commence to keep an average of the amount of work he did per diem. The way he faked that average would have brought a blush to the cheek of the chartered libertine, and made the chartered accountant moan for humanity. The first week gave a daily average of 2 hours 20·5 minutes. In the second week we were asked to believe that he had done rather more than ten hours a day. That man drives a cab now: self-deception never pays. Another man, who was quite a friend of mine, liked pork chops. He pretended that he didn’t, and made himself believe that he didn’t. Why? Simply and solely because he once wrote a poem—and published it—which began:

Before he wrote that poem, he used to feed almost entirely on pork chops. After it was published, he pretended that a little ripe fruit was all he needed. What’s become of him? What do you suppose? Trichinosis, of course. It’s much better to be perfectly honest. The worst case of all was last May. A man made himself believe that he loved Bradelby’s sister, and he never got any better. He just pined away and married her. Perhaps you don’t realise what that means, but you never met Bradelby’s sister.

I met her. She sat down at the piano, and stroked it as if it were a lap-dog. She was quite tender in her movements, and she sang:

Shortly afterwards she said that she wanted to live a useful life. That sort of thing stamps a woman.

I suppose I must have been going to sleep when I thought that last sentence. For I suddenly found myself in the centre of Epping Forest, and before me was a college dean in full academicals. He was a leathery old dean to look at, and yet he had some nervousness of manner. Of course he was not a real dean, but only a dream dean. The real deans—I cannot say it too emphatically—are not leathery, and are not nervous.

When he saw me, he began to rub his hands gently and to smile, until I thought my heart would break.

“This is a little unusual,” he said; “a little irregular, is it not? Have you permission, may I ask, from the University authorities, to drive a Canadian canoe tandem through Epping Forest?”

“No, sir,” I said politely; “but I was not aware that permission was required.”

“Epps’s Forest,” he retorted inanely, “contains absolutely no fatty matter. Applicants are therefore assured, if they cannot borrow here, it would be futile to apply elsewhere. Personal visit invited.”

“But, sir,” I urged, “this is a personal——”

“Stop!” he interrupted me, tapping the palm of one hand with the forefinger of the other. “That’s not the point, and you know it’s not the point. I have come here to practise my part—Titania—in Midsummer Night’s Dream, with real fairies. I do not do it because I like it. I do it because I wish to entertain and interest some young ladies who will be staying with me during the June festivities. You interrupt my preparations, you frighten the fairies, you annoy me exceedingly, and your attendance in college chapel is not what it should be. You’ve been smoking, and you smell. Where no allotment is made the deposit will be returned in full.”

I could not quite make it out, because the dean did not seem as if he would make up into a good Titania. But that was the only thing that surprised me. I promised to sit quite still, and not to frighten the fairies, and entreated him to go on with the rehearsal.

“Very well,” he said, seating himself on a camp-stool. “You will not see the fairies; but you will hear them. We are now commencing Act II., Scene iii. I give them their cue:—

Now, then they sing—

You know it?”

I knew it very well; but what the fairies really sang was this:—

First Fairy.

Chorus.

Second Fairy.

(Chorus as before.)

“There,” exclaimed the dean, turning to me, “that goes pretty well, I think. Shakespeare would be pleased. I shall play Midsummer Night’s Dream on the first night of the visit of my lady friends. On the second night I am going to sing them some songs. On the third night I shall give a conjuring entertainment.” He suddenly stopped, and burst into tears. “And on the fourth night,” he sobbed, “their funeral will take place, and they are so young and fair!”

“Couldn’t you fix their funeral for the first night?” I asked. “They’d suffer less so.”

“No,” said the dean firmly, “they must be amused first—amused and interested and entertained. And I must amuse them, and I never amused any one in my life before. I can’t take them to the races, because there are undergraduates about. I can’t take them to dances for similar reasons. I’m going to do it all myself.” He burst out sobbing again. “And I know it will kill them. The fairies won’t play out of Epping Cocoa, so I shall have to undertake every character in the piece. Now I must go back, and practise my songs. I am so anxious to be amusing. It quite weighs on my mind. You don’t know anything that would do for the conjuring entertainment, do you? Card-tricks, you know, or think-of-any-number-you-like, or something of that sort?”

As he said these words he got into my boat, which started down a river that flowed into a drawing-room. We got out. Then the boat changed into a piano, and the dean sat down to it, and began to play the symphony.

“It’s one of those simple, touching songs, and it’s called ‘Papa.’”

Then he sang:

“You can’t possibly sing that to the ladies,” I said.

“No,” he answered; “I’ve kept the words a little too long, and the weather’s been hot. I’ll try another—a fervent and passionate one.”

“No, you won’t,” I said firmly, and jumped into the piano, which changed into the canoe again, and started away down the river.

“That’s the wrong ’bus!” the dean shrieked after me. He shrieked so loudly that he woke me. At least, he half woke me. I was so full of the idea that I was in the wrong ’bus that I got out. The canoe was in the middle of the river at the time. You will find an excellent edition of Plato’s “Phædo,” a copy of last week’s Review, and my nicest pipe at the bottom of the river in King’s. At any rate, you may go and dive for them if you like.